Existing research on electoral sentencing cycles consistently finds that elected judges levy longer sentences when they are up for re-election. However, this research finding had previously drawn exclusively on data from four states. Using newly collected sentencing data on seven additional states, we find substantial, and previously un-noted, heterogeneity in the strength of sentencing cycles. This heterogeneity appears to be explained by cross-state differences in informal norm of whether incumbent judges get challenged in judicial elections. We show that variation is explain by the baseline probability of having a challenger and the number of donations per electoral race. That variation, in turn, is not well explained by observable formal electoral institutions.

Existing research on electoral sentencing cycles consistently finds that elected judges levy longer sentences when they are up for re-election. 然而，这项研究结果之前完全基于来自四个州的数据。使用新收集的关于另外七个州的量刑数据，我们发现量刑周期强度存在大量且以前未注意到的异质性。这种异质性似乎是由在职法官是否在司法选举中受到挑战的非正式规范的跨州差异来解释的。我们表明，这种变化可以通过拥有挑战者的基线概率和每次选举的捐款数量来解释。反过来，可观察到的正式选举机构并不能很好地解释这种差异。